This is Mr. Weber's last assembly address of the 2011-2012 school year.
I was at the boys’ lacrosse play off game on Saturday against
Fr. Ryan. After trailing 7-1 in the first half, we came roaring back to tie it
late in the third period, traded goals back and forth in the fourth period,
until Ryan scored with about a minute and a half to go and we lost 10-9. I was thinking of our seniors when the
final buzzer sounded. It’s been four great years: a combined record of 50-17, two
state championships, and a lot of memories. And then, in the cruel finality of
sport, it’s suddenly over.
It’s that time of year for you seniors. This is your last
week of school. Today is the last school assembly you will attend as high
school students. You’ve already attended your last school prom. You’ll be attending your last classes
this week and taking your final, final exams. More and more things are “suddenly over.”
And perhaps, just perhaps, some of you may be feeling what a
friend of mine in college felt on the day just before graduation at Notre Dame.
He had complained the loudest of any of us about the repressive, oppressive
rules and regulations of the school. He had said a million times in four years,
“I can’t wait to get out of here.” But on the day before we both graduated, I
was astonished by what he confided in me, very emotionally: “I know I’ve complained,
but I’m not ready to leave. This place is my home. This is where my friends
are. When we graduate, we’ll all
scatter, and yeah, we’ll come back for reunions every now and then, but it
won’t be the same. I don’t know what’s out there, but I know what’s here. “
Seniors, you know what is here. I continue to believe, as I
did when I arrived with you in 2008—me as the new headmaster, you as incoming freshmen--that JPII is a pretty special place. And through the sacrifices of your
teachers and parents, through your own sacrifices, you have achieved much that
you can be proud of. But just as
things are “suddenly over,” so too are things “suddenly beginning,” a chance to
re-create yourselves anew, to make new friends, to join new clubs and teams, to
serve other people in new ways.
Our school’s most profound hope for you is that you will
continue to carve out a place in your life to keep the Lord close to you in college next year. You
won’t be at a school that shuffles you into Wednesday morning mass. There’s no 40 hour Christian Service
requirement. There won’t be prayer before your classes or before the
games. Most of you won’t be in
theology classes where you can discuss your faith. Your parents won’t be there
to wake you up so you can go to Church on Sunday morning. You can now literally
choose whether your faith is your own, or whether it will be a mere artifact
from your childhood.
There will be many you will meet in college who will tell
you that faith is a foolish, childish thing, something that serious
intellectuals don’t have time for. But keep this image in your head: from the
outside of the Church looking in, the stained glass windows appear to be dull,
ugly things, depicting nothing. It’s only from the inside looking out that the brilliant colors and images of those windows, illuminated by light, can be seen and understood. Our faith can only by appreciated from the inside looking out. Find a Church to belong to in college. Make
friends that care about their faith like you do, so that you can support each
other to live good lives.
I hope and pray that JPII has given you the opportunity to
see the beauty and power of what we hold to be true from the inside out. These four years have gone by blazingly
fast. I hope and pray you can say about your experience at JPII, what the early Christian disciples once proclaimed:
“What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we
have seen with our own eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our own
hands—The Word who is Life. “ (I John 1:1)
Stay close to him.
